THE DAILY WHIP: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013

**Members are advised that today, the House will complete the remaining 30 minutes of general debate and consider all amendments to H.R. 444.

Complete Consideration of H.R. 444 – “Require a PLAN D Act” (Rep. Price (GA) – Budget). This bill requires the president, if his original FY 2014 Budget fails to show balance in any year covered by the budget, typically ten years, to submit a supplemental budget. This second budget submission, due by April 1, has the additional requirements of reporting the first year the budget would return to surplus and what new changes are being made.

Along with the normal outlay and revenue information required to be included in annual budgets, the supplemental budget must include an estimate of the earliest fiscal year in which no deficit would occur and a detailed description of the additional policies that would have to be implemented to achieve a balanced budget. It also must include an explanation of the differences between the president's original FY 2014 budget and the supplemental budget.

The Rule makes in order 5 amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes, equally divided between the offeror and an opponent. The amendments are:

Rep.Takano Amendment. Makes changes to the findings section, clarifying that Congress holds responsibility for passing budgets and appropriating funds that allowed the current level of debtReps.Schrader/Wolf/Cooper/Gibson Amendment. Adds findings stating the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended a balanced package of revenue and spending reforms which should form the basis for the President’s supplemental budgetRep.Fleming Amendment. Requires the President’s supplemental budget to evaluate duplicative agencies and include proposals to consolidate them for cost savingsRep. Messer Amendment. Requires the President’s supplemental budget to include the cost, per taxpayer, of the annual deficit for each year in which it projects oneRep. Scalise Amendment. Mirrors the House-passed Rules package by requiring the President's supplemental budget to include new subcategories for mandatory programs that are “Means-Tested Direct Spending” and “Nonmeans-Tested Direct Spending,” and supply information on such programs including average growth and reforms

“Republicans have happened upon a felicitous new strategy for reviving their party from its depressed state: They need only think happy thoughts. At a retreat for Republican leaders last month, former House speaker Newt Gingrich told them to ‘learn to be a happy party’ and a ‘cheerful’ one... House Majority Leader Eric Cantor took this don’t­-worry-be-happy strategy seriously, and in a heavily promoted ‘major’ speech to the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday afternoon, he let the sun shine in… But the sunny routine was a difficult one for Cantor… When it came to what his party would do to make people so buoyant and uplifted, Cantor had little beyond the policies he and his colleagues have long offered… In recent weeks, Republican leaders such as Cantor have resembled nothing so much as laundry detergent salesmen, figuring if they can simply rebrand their product (High Efficiency 2x Ultra Stainlifter Clean Breeze Concentrated Fresh!) Americans will buy what they’re selling. Omitted from consideration is the possibility that consumers don’t like what’s in the bottle. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said Sunday that voters ‘don’t understand the conservative message.’ Paul Ryan, the former vice presidential candidate, said Republicans need only ‘do a better job of applying our principles.’ Cantor picked up this theme Tuesday morning on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ saying Republicans haven’t ‘completed the sentence, which is, we’re trying to do this to help people.’ Problem is, the optimistic talk collides with grim realities. Cantor spoke Tuesday about Lady Liberty lifting her ‘lamp beside the golden door,’ but he was noncommittal on the comprehensive immigration reforms drafted by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). He spoke about how ‘many of today’s cures and lifesaving treatments are a result of an initial federal investment’ without mentioning that the House Republicans’ budgets would decimate medical research. Cantor spoke about how health care ‘always worries parents most.’ But he continued to advocate the repeal of Obamacare, even though Ohio’s conservative governor, John Kasich, on Monday became the fifth Republican governor to embrace the law’s Medicaid expansion… Cantor might heed his own advice: Americans don’t care about Republicans’ happy talk. They want happy results.”